Francis – English

Francis took their* stuff and didn’t even say goodbye. When Francis were 16 years old, they left their maternal grandmother’s house, where they had lived for almost a year. Francis was tired of the violence, the pressure, and the exhausting imposition of being Francisca Paulina —a teen who used to secretly break the zipper of their skirt in the school’s dressing room in order to be able to wear sweatpants, and who was mocked by elder children who called them “the boy girl.” They arrived at their father’s house and said, “I want to cut my hair.” That is how the transition into becoming Francis began. Francis did not want to be a girl or a boy, just Francis.

*Translator note: Francis is a non-binary transgender and in this text is addressed by gender-neutral/gender-inclusive pronouns: they/them/their/theirs/themselves.

While seated in the courtyard of the Universidad of Chile’s Faculty of Social Sciences, Francis sports that discolored hair, which is very short on the sides, longer on top. “No more infamous waves emerge in my hair anymore” says Francis, in recalling their long curly hair. “If someone tells me that I look like my mom with my short hair, Cool!” thought Francis when looking at themselves in the mirror for the first time. “But if someone tells me that I look more like my dad, that’s fine too, because I can look like both. It doesn’t have to be one or the other, I can be whatever I want,” Francis concluded.

In February, Francis had started their hormone therapy and by March, the changes were still very subtle. “Since I’m a non-binary person, I take low doses of testosterone. These are not going to be major changes. It’s not that I want to look like a giant macho. I like my complexion.” Francis’ fellow students in Anthropology asked what pronoun they should use to address them. It was a 180-degree turn, after having studied Psychology at the Universidad Finis Terrae for a year, an institution that, according to Francis, was not very tolerant of sexual diversities and where they were uncomfortable from the very first day. “That was my idea of being here, that no one would annoy me for being me.”

Despite accepting with no objections that most people use the masculine pronoun when addressing to them, Francis would rather be addressed by the neutral pronoun (they*,) but knows it’s not always easy. When Francis goes to the fair with their father, and runs into friends, neighbors, he introduces Francis as ‘his son’. “As everyone knew he had a daughter and a son, they say ‘this is your younger son’ and I think ‘oh… no’. Francis admits that their dad “has a hard time explaining about his non-binary child.”

Francis wears glasses, two earrings in the mouth, a printed shirt, and dark pants. “I know people see me as a 15-year-old boy, even though I’m 20. From my perspective, I can only say ‘No, I’m neither a man nor a woman, it’s just me.’ I don’t have to subject myself to be labeled under your gender stereotypes.”

The Prince of Tennis

Francis liked playing sports. They went to the park with their dad and together played ball. Francis never felt a “gender” was imposed on them, “this is a girl’s thing; this is a boy’s thing.” Francis shared everything with their brother Alberto, who is two years younger. “I had a sick amount of stuffed animals and there was a fever for My Little Pony back then, so we collected them. But we also had balls, cars, and we played with everything.” Francis also left their* clothes so Alberto could inherit it, “so it had to be quite neutral,” says Francis.

Entering school was a major change. They were very binary for everything, says Francis. Women could only do cheerleading, volleyball or hockey. When Francis asked to play basketball, in third grade, the teacher said: “No, that’s a men’s thing. No.” Basketball, soccer and rugby were for boys. “I wanted to play basketball with all my heart. I liked sports, it was what I liked doing.”

When Francis told their parents back then, they got them their own basketball equipment. “They bought one of those basketball hoops from the supermarket and mounted it on the wall. I could play without a teacher coming to tell me what a men’s or women’s thing was.” Their brother gave Francis a soccer ball. So Francis eventually got away with it, says Alberto.

Francis has always been a fan of anime, comics and “cartoons,” locking themselves a lot in their inner world, reading, watching TV, from Scooby Doo to Pokémon. Francis liked a series called The Prince of Tennis. There was a female character in it, but Francis thought they didn’t look or dress like that girl. At that time, Francis wanted to be like the Prince of Tennis. So Elsa, their mother, bought Francis a racket.

Outside home, however, Francis lived through the impositions of being “a girl.” At school, teachers scolded them for playing boys’ games with boys. Francis had to wear a dress every time they visited their grandmother, who thought Fran (Francisca) wasn’t a name that was feminine enough, so she called Francis by her middle name, ‘Paulina’. Francis remembers that, at school events, she called them by that name: “Paulina, Paulina!” and Francis did not realize they were being addressed. “The other parents didn’t understand anything, they said, ‘there’s no Paulina in the class.’”

Francis says that they experienced a “subtle, but ongoing” bullying, first, for their weight, and secondly for their more “masculine” expression. There were girls two or three years older that said, “look, there goes the boy girl.” “One thing specifically targeting me, a kind of harassment that upset me and wore me down.” However, Francis was calm and didn’t get into trouble. Until one day, some older kids started bullying Alberto. Determined to defend him, Francis ended up exchanging blows with them. They had too much patience, but not if their brother was involved, no, Francis thought.

The following year, Francis barely lasted one week at that school. Given Francis’ short dyed hair and mouth piercings, the rejection became too obvious. “It was a very violent reality, where the slightest attempt at being different was repressed.” Francis then moved to Altamira, located in Peñalolén, where they completed their secondary education. Despite not having made their transition at that time, and spending part of the year with depression, Francis says they were “extremely happy” at that school.

The Absence of Meema

Francis’ mom, Elisa, had Parkinson. Francis’ father, Marcelo, began to notice her tremors shortly after they married. She said it was just fatigue until it became clear that it was not. However, it was something subtle that did not affect the home routine. “It was the typical life of a middle-class family where parents work and children study,” says Francis.

Marcelo and “Elsita,“” as Francis’ father calls her, met in an unconventional way. He was a Franciscan priest from Puerto Montt who had taken his vows of poverty, while Elsa studied Psychology. God, says Marcelo, put me a test. “I was a male chauvinist, maybe I still am, and homophobic, very homophobic. My superior, unaware of this, sent me to work with another brother at Recoleta Franciscana church, helping a group of HIV patients. Almost all of them were homosexuals and I was outraged.”

Meeting them changed his life in many ways. “I understood that one has to be a Christian in Christ’s way, not in one’s own way, interpreting things for our convenience. If we believers think that everything created by God is good, these people are good too.” He says he still remembers them fondly. At that time, he met Elsa, who was giving workshops about HIV, a subject he was interested in learning more about back then, and they fell in love.

Francis confesses that their mother may have been overprotective, allowing Francis to be a child until they grew up. Once they watched a Pokémon movie on TV together. “There was like a little fox that spoke and called its mother ‘Meema’, which is an endearment of ‘Mom.’ We began to call my mother Meema and she repeated it, she even told me on the phone ‘How come you haven’t called your Meema’?!” I always think of her as Meema.

A week before turning 16, Francis’ mother died unexpectedly from a heart failure. Francis temporarily moved in with their grandmother, who lived closer to school. But Francis couldn’t bear it much longer. “She became very aggressive with me, because I wasn’t what she wanted me to be.”

“Our life turned upside down and we were separated for a while,” says Marcelo. He admits that he lacks his other half, the family’s ground wire, but believes that God prepared him to take responsibility for the situation. “Maybe our children felt that their mother was more tolerant when it came to understanding their realities, so I have tried listening to them and reacting calmly in an embracing manner.” Shortly after Francis told him about being transgender, Alberto found the courage to tell him he was gay.

Upon graduating from school, Francis got a “Book of Adventures” inspired by the animated film Up as a gift from their father. This book, which was full of old pictures and letters in multiple colors and was handwritten by Marcelo himself, tells the story of their life. One of the pages in this book reads as follows: “I grew up, what a drag!”

Now the three of them live together in Macul. Their father, who taught religion, is now working as a bus driver. “It’s sad, but that’s where he makes more money,” says Francis. Marcelo takes both of them and picks them up anywhere. He explains that it’s not that he doesn’t trust them, but he distrusts all others. He remembers what happened to Daniel Zamudio (a young gay man who was killed with much cruelty) and gets worried, anxious. “I’m always afraid, I don’t want anyone to hurt them because they’re different,” he confesses. He feels the double responsibility of carrying on Elsie’s work and doubles his efforts in looking after both of his children.

Alberto is in his last year of secondary education at Altamira school, and Francis is already in the second semester of Anthropology. Francis took part in a feminist takeover of their faculty, despite not playing an active role in it. Francis reflects that “thanks to my female classmates, I have learned that their slogans are not so different from those of the trans movement. I’ve been questioning myself a lot in this issue lately for having more privileges just because I’m transitioning to a more male gender expression. That’s very unfair.” Francis has gradually developed their most activist side, and is part of a small collective of non-binary gendered people called Neutres.

Francis sometimes wears some of their mother’s clothes. “If someone gives me a blue T-shirt with flowers, for example, I’m going to wear it without raising any objections,” because they are free from these boundaries as a non-binary person, Francis explains. “I still have menstrual cramps and it’s ok. I’m super happy with my genitals.” They do think about getting a mastectomy sometimes, but there is no hurry, says Francis.

Francis admits being lucky, because their father has supported them in everything. “I know other teens who have been kicked out of their homes and that is very frustrating for me.”

• What upsets you the most?
• In brief, the inherent human violence to anything different.

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